“but the bravest man among us is afraid of himself”

“I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream—I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal—to something finer, richer, than the Hellenic ideal, it may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get ride of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it is forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.”

“The true artist is a man who believes absolutely in himself, because he is absolutely himself.”

“I am afraid it is quite clear, Cecily, that neither of us is engaged to be married to any one.”

“A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.”

“A man who takes himself too seriously will find that no one else takes him seriously.”

“If one listens one may be convinced; and a man who allows himself to be convinced by an argument is a thoroughly unreasonable person”